Fashion Models Sue Management Agencies for Exploitation, Labor Law Violations

Modeling agencies sound like Hollywood producers and Washington DC politicians. Where are humans not being exploited?  Are tenured faculty exploiting ambitious graduate students?

[From article]
Eight of the biggest modeling agencies in the world are going to court next month to fight a case that threatens to lay bare the horrors of the modeling industry.
If successful the suit could see thousands of models compensated, cost the agencies in excess of $100million and change the way they do business forever.
Daily Mail Online has spoken to models, including several bringing the suit against a series of agencies.
The agencies - Wilhelmina Models, Wilhemina Models International, Elite, Click, MC2 Model and Talent Miami, MC2, Next and Major Model Management - represent the biggest in the modelling world.
All have told of how they experienced a world where sexual harassment, pressure to have cosmetic surgery, eating disorders and drug abuse are common.
But it is the agencies' alleged circumvention of labor laws that forms the basis of their case.
There are claims of thousands of dollars deducted from their paycheck in spurious 'expenses'; extortionate rent charged for model apartments; late or missed payments and interest charged on advances that keep all but the most successful girls indebted and dependent on their agency.
The case is to be strongly defended by the modeling industry, who say that it would devastate them and that the claims are baseless.
They say models get a fair deal, and that claims of financial wrongdoing are entirely untrue.
The case began when Louisa Raske, who began her career while a sophomore at high school, noticed her face on a box of L'Oreal hair dye in CVS. She had never been paid for its use.
'I was with a lawyer who was a friend. So we questioned it. My agency said they couldn't find me. I was like, that's impossible,' she told Daily Mail Online.
The image had been re-licensed for use across various territories and the same had happened to numerous girls.
Louisa explained: 'I contacted the other girls and we were like, 'Let's do this.'
New York attorney, Christopher Kercher, took on the case last spring.
'We realized this was about much more than just some agencies withholding payment. This was about the whole business model,' he said.
Now 35 and living in Miami, Raske was a sophomore in Atlanta, Georgia when she was spotted.
She said: 'All you can think about is you're excited to be a model. When you're 14, 15 you don't think twice about money.
'It's such easy prey and on top of that a lot of the girls are coming from Europe or Russia and don't speak English.'
In the US agencies take 20% commission on every payment made to models.
They also take an additional 20% from the client in a finders' fee, so on a $1,000 job the model makes $800 and the agency $400.
There are then expenses deducted - with the biggest cost housing.
Raske lived in a model apartment when she moved to Miami after signing with Next.
She recalled: 'There would be eight to ten girls and they'd charge each person $1,200 to $1,500 per month. They might be paying $3,500 on the apartment if that.
[. . .]
According to model Rachel Blais the problem is not limited to the agencies named in the suit.
Despite the fact that she was in regular work Rachel recalled living on $75 a week in New York.
[. . .]
'When I was 19 my agency asked me to have liposuction. That's how they also get you into big debts. They pay for it but then you owe them.
'When I said I didn't want liposuction they said they had put together a little list of photographers I should be 'hanging out with,' wink, wink, sleep with.'
For Rachel the slide from financial into sexual exploitation is very real.
She explained: 'I've been to clubs in New York where I've seen the supermodels partying with their agents. But I've also seen girls struggling and what they ended up doing.
'There's this culture of normalizing the use of your body to make money. Escorting or however you want to call it.
'I don't know a single girl who hasn't been told you're going to be the next supermodel. You're going to make lots of money. So this creates a lot of expectation and you're young, so you keep going, you keep hoping and you keep getting exploited.'
Today's suit is not the first time models have sought to take on the agencies.
In 2002 six Californian models brought an antitrust suit against eight major agencies: Elite Models Inc, Ford Models Inc, Wilhelmina Model Agency Inc and five other New York based agencies.
According to attorney Andrew Hayes who represented the models: 'The claim was that the agencies had agreed, in the 1970s, to all claim to be exempt from the New York law that limits their commissions to 10% of the models' bookings.
'The basis of the exemption was that the agencies were "personal managers", and not booking agents.
'This was absurd because the 'personal manager' exemption only applies for managers who are only incidentally involved in securing bookings for their clients.'
Lorelei Shellist, 57, was among the models. Now a designer, author and empowerment coach living in Los Angeles, she said: 'I knew that I wasn't going to retrieve any money because the statute of limitations had already run out. But I didn't care. I wasn't doing it for the money.
'I was doing it because I wanted to advocate for the newbies, because they were double dipping, they were taking these extra expenses as well as overcharging girls for being in their books and whatever other charges. Nobody had your back.'
She said: 'If you asked questions you were considered trouble and they'd show you the door.'
She recalled: 'I lived in an apartment outside of Paris that was owned by [Elite agency founder] John Casablancas.
'There were five of us in that apartment and I remember him coming up with some 15 year old Swedish girl and them going into the bedroom together and then him coming out about an hour later. That girl was working like crazy after that.
'There were favors. That's part of the exploitation.
'The girls that were doing well were going out with the agents and the photographers.'
Carolyn Fears was also in the 2002 suit. Now 46, Illinois born Carolyn was 19 when she signed with Ford and moved to New York. She recalled: 'I didn't know how bad things were until I got my first paycheck.
'There was a $1,500 deduction. I went up to my booker and I said, 'I was just curious what this was for?'
'I didn't know that Eileen Ford was standing behind me. And she said, 'You listen here missy. I don't see you on the cover of Vogue.' I was terrified they were going to fire me.'
Carolyn later discovered that the fee was for her inclusion in Ford's book.
She said: 'It sounds like a legitimate expense but if there's 100 models in that book and they're each paying $1,500, how much does that book actually cost?
'When I once told them I would like to see receipts they said it's not possible.
'You never knew what your paycheck would be and I never saw a single contract showing how much any client actually paid.'
Eventually the agencies settled. Andrew Hayes recalled: 'In total a settlement fund of over $20million was set up. A few thousand models submitted claims and each model received 100% of their allowed claim.'
There was also, he said, an injunction which 'required greater transparency by the agencies in negotiating their contracts with models – specifically, telling them that the commission rate was negotiable – and requiring the agencies to provide documentation of the expenses and other charges that would appear on models' statements.'
If the experiences of the models bringing today's suit are representative of industry practice, then the injunction seems to have had little impact.
Speaking today Andrew Hayes said: 'The costs of the litigation had the effect of clearing out some of the old guard. John Casablancas [who died in 2012] sold to Eddie Trump [who is unrelated to Donald Trump] and the Ford family also sold.
'But it's been over ten years so perhaps it's not surprising that there has been some serious backsliding.'
Lorelei Shellist describes this 'backsliding' as a 'slap in the face.'
However the model industry is fighting hard against the case.
Former president and partner of Ford, Joey Hunter – who began his career as a model for the agency - has little sympathy for any of the models or their claims.
In a staunch defense of big agencies he dismissed the picture of systematic abuse painted by the models in both the forthcoming lawsuit and the suit, in which Ford settled, in 2002.
He said: 'The should be focusing on the scams that exist not the legitimate agencies. We give a print out with every check. You can go to the accounting office and get a print out of your account.
'We're taking chances with them. We feel that they're going to work. We front the money. A lot of these girls never pay their debt. Nobody sues them for it. We take it on the chin.
'I'm not saying that there's not an agency out there that could be ripping them off. But if I speak for the big agencies believe me nobody's ripping them off.'
And Robert Hantman, attorney for MC2, said the current lawsuit is without merit.
He explained: 'We have proof that the models were paid on time and any expenses that were deducted were reasonable.
'Financially this [suit] would devastate the modeling industry. Models are developed. They're not generally born.
'They're developed and when they're developed they're making no money. The modeling agency's advancing money for apartments, head shots, transportation, trying to help subsidize them till the reach the point where they can make money.
'This case is nonsensical, it lacks logic, and it urges a result which would destroy the modeling industry in New York. It's just absurd.
'He added: 'I can say this MC2 will never pay a penny and if this isn't dismissed we're going to try the case to its conclusion.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3601621/Sex-work-pressure-cosmetic-surgery-drug-abuse-eating-disorders-fake-fees-agents-Hell-exploited-models-revealed-landmark-court-case.html

EXCLUSIVE: Sex for contracts, pressure to have cosmetic surgery and lose weight, fake fees by their own agents - 'Hell' of exploited models to be revealed in landmark court case
World's biggest modelling agencies face bombshell claims as they try to fight off lawsuit which could cost $100 million
Former and current models claim they were ripped off by the agencies with fake fees and bogus expenses charged against their earnings
Agencies say the class action could devastate their business model and is baseless
One model tells Daily Mail Online she witnessed one boss sexually exploit a 15-year-old girl who was 'rewarded' with more work
Models claim they were put up in battery farm conditions then charged a fortune for the privilege
5'11, 110lb model was told to have cosmetic procedure to slim her thighs
Different model was told to dump her boyfriend while he was serving in Afghanistan - and take up with an A-list celebrity instead
Another was on $10,000 a day shoots - but her blue-collar father in Ohio had to send her checks for the groceries she was so hard-up
By Laura Collins For Dailymail.com
Published: 08:43 EST, 24 May 2016 | Updated: 15:47 EST, 24 May 2016

Sex Trade in Thailand Supported By Westerners

The red light district in South Pattaya, Thailand.

Photo: Getty Images
[From article]
Grimy, neon-splashed Walking Street, populated largely by young hookers and pie-eyed Western men, is the main attraction of a Thai beach town called Pattaya. Sex for hire there was most certainly what drew Ben Bartanyi, the 49-year-old American real estate broker recently arrested for allegedly performing a sex act on a 20-year-old dancer in one of Pattaya’s many strip clubs as other patrons cheered him on.
Some people may have been surprised by the outrageousness of it all. I wasn’t. Ten years ago I visited Thailand to do a story on the commercial sex trade there. By all accounts, nothing has changed.

[. . .]

Small stages inside teem with nude or bikini-clad women who are there for the taking — so much so that they have numbers pinned to their skimpy tops or G-string bottoms. These numerical designations make it easy for customers to call them and take them out for cheap sex.
[. . .]
It was a raunchy scene where women were readily available. Most of them came from the poor northern part of Thailand. They moved to Pattaya or Bangkok to earn money to send back home. As one girl wearing a skin-tight knock-off T-shirt that read J’Adore Dior, explained to me, “I need to make money for family. They grow rice and raise buffalo, but they are very poor. They need money for tools. You can get very hungry in Isan [the northern, rural region from which she comes].”
Of course, many of the naive family members thought their daughters and sisters were working in the big cities’ department stores. Surely, family members would be horrified to know what comes with making the money they receive.
[. . .]
These days the girls earn as little as $28 per hour. It’s a pittance for the work involved, but a lot more than the $10 per day that they could make with factory jobs at home. Still, they sacrifice a lot by being in Thailand’s sex trade, where diseases run rampant (according to one 2007 study in the International Journal of STD of AIDS up to 20 percent of Thai working girls are HIV positive) and drugs can be the only thing that gets the girls through shifts.
“I have few friends and no life outside of work,” a Bangkok bar-girl told me, standing on the fringe of Nana Entertainment Plaza, a three-story mall of sorts, where hundreds of prostitutes work out of strip clubs with names such as Play School and Bottoms Up. “It is bad what I do, and I cannot have a Thai man. Now I look for farang [Thai slang for Westerners] to support me. Someday I will be a good person.”
[. . .]
As the Thai government seems to turn a mostly blind eye to the trade, — it’s not technically legal but it is widely tolerated — the beat goes on. Westerners keep coming for the thrills they can’t afford at home, and Thai women who are caught up in the sex biz grimly endure.
“I miss my family, my baby girl,” a young mother, six months into the trade, told me and started to sob. “This is not the life for me. It’s a bad life.”

http://nypost.com/2016/04/24/inside-the-thai-sex-scene-where-women-are-sold-like-meat/

Inside the Thai sex scene — where women are sold like meat
By Michael Kaplan
New York Post
April 24, 2016 | 7:20am

Unvetted Immigration Allows Human Trafficking Of Unaccompanied Children

[From article]
The government agency responsible for settling the children with sponsors and groups failed to adequately vet them. The result is that an unknown number of illegal alien children were placed with human traffickers.
Washington Post:
The Obama administration failed to protect thousands of Central American children who have flooded across the U.S. border since 2011, leaving them vulnerable to traffickers and to abuses at the hands of government-approved caretakers, a Senate investigation has found.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, failed to do proper background checks of adults who claimed the children, allowed sponsors to take custody of multiple unrelated children, and regularly placed children in homes without visiting the locations, according to a 56-page investigative report released Thursday.
[. . .]
several Guatemalan teens were found in a dilapidated trailer park near Marion, Ohio, where they were being held captive by traffickers and forced to work at a local egg farm. The boys were among more than 125,000 unaccompanied minors who have surged into the United States since 2011, fleeing violence and unrest in
[. . .]
The report concluded that administration “policies and procedures were inadequate to protect the children in the agency’s care.”
[. . .]
It detailed nearly 30 cases where unaccompanied children had been trafficked after federal officials released them to sponsors or where there were “serious trafficking indicators.”
“HHS places children with individuals about whom it knows relatively little and without verifying the limited information provided by sponsors about their alleged relationship with the child,” the report said.
It goes without saying that no one will be fired because of this report. Apparently, deliberately handing kids over to people the government knows nothing about who then turn out to be human traffickers is just business as usual for the Obama administration.
Meanwhile, children are suffering unspeakable degradation. How many children are similarly trapped is unknown. But given the slap-dash efforts to vet sponsors to make sure they are who they say they are, it's possible that thousands of kids are being sold into virtual slavery.
The administration was so intent on moving the kids out of detention centers, that it became the overriding goal rather than finding decent homes of the children. But it also raises questions about the vetting of refugees coming from the Middle East. If the government can't keep kids out of the hands of human traffickers, how are they going to keep terrorists out of the country?

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/outrage_administration_may_have_handed_thousands_of_illegal_alien_kids_over_to_human_traffickers_.html

January 29, 2016
Outrage: Administration may have handed thousands of illegal alien kids over to human traffickers
By Rick Moran

How Long Will People Accept Abuse, Before Questioning Their Leaders

[From article]
Other black relatives and friends were equally racially seduced; enthralled with Obama. But after seven years, at what point do Obama loyalists reinstate their brains? When do Obama sycophants begin questioning his actions; asking, “Why?”
[. . .]
According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report and Census Bureau figures, blacks have lost ground in income, employment, and education under Obama. Black Leftist pundit Travis Smiley had to admit, “The data is going to indicate sadly that when the Obama administration is over, black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator category.
[. . .]



The mainstream media does not want you to know that black and Hispanic parents protested in front of the capitol against Obama trying to shut down their school voucher program. Isn't it reasonable to question why this self-proclaimed savior of the poor and minorities would do such a thing?
[. . .]
Obama vetoed a bill that would end gifting the butchers $500 million annually of taxpayer money to, in essence, murder black babies. Why, Mr. President, why?
[. . .]
Obama said, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” He also said, “The sweetest sound I know is the Muslim call to prayer.” Isn't it about time you black Christian Obama sycophants ponder why? Does your loyalty to Obama's skin-color trump your commitment to Christ?
[. . .]



Obama ignores blacks murdering each other in record numbers every weekend in cites with strict gun laws and controlled by Democrats. Why?
[. . .]
“Death to America!” is chanted at government-sanctioned rallies in Iran. So why would Obama make a deal paving the way for Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb? Obama's deal also gifts Iran $150 billion to fund their efforts as the world's leading sponsor of terrorism, targeting Israel, our ally. Obama lied again claiming there are ballistic missile restrictions in his Iran Nuke deal. There are not.
The Pentagon warns that Iran's ballistic missiles are a threat to America.
[. . .]



Obama's unprecedented assaults and undermining of America and Americans. Still, it would not make a difference to black racists and many Obama walking dead zombies. Nothing will cause them to question Obama's actions.
It reminds me of a story in the Bible. A man was suffering in hell. He asked to return to earth to warn his brothers not to follow his path. God said not even a visitor from beyond would change their minds.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/at_what_point_do_obama_loyalists_begin_asking_why_.html

January 11, 2016
At What Point Do Obama Loyalists Begin Asking 'Why'?
By Lloyd Marcus

All White People Are Wealthy and Powerful; All Black People Are Poor and Weak

Civil War Dead Spotsylvania 1864

"he supports government reparations to African Americans to help reverse this inequality. 'It’s not enough to just stop wounding someone, but you actually have to heal someone and do something about the harm that you produced,'" Is it only white people, including poor white people, who are expected to pay reparations to black people? Or wealthy black multi millionaire athletes, celebrities and drug dealers too? Will wealthy black people give money to poor white people harmed by black people? Will powerful black persons provide affirmative action in employment and college admissions to poor white people? When does special privileges for black people who suffered no harm end? When will black people stop punishing white people who did no wrong? What about descendants of the 500,000 white men who died in a war to end slavery? When will they be healed? What is enough white bashing? When will white people being beaten, robbed, raped and murdered today by young white-hating black men, be compensated and healed? Will they get reparations too?

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/11/12/coates-race-discussion-iop/

Ta-Nehisi Coates Talks Race Relations at JFK Forum
By JULIA E. DEBENEDICTIS and DANIEL P. WOOD,

Harvard Crimson

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
November 11, 2015

Economic Elder Abuse Increasing

[From article]

Elderly people are robbed of cash and assets worth more than £78m each year, and in most cases the culprits are members of their own family, according to new research by Action on Elder Abuse (AEA).
The money is obtained through theft, threats or trickery, and the scale of the problem warrants the creation of a new crime of “elder abuse”, campaigners say.
There has been a fourfold increase in calls to the AEA’s helpline over the past two years, from 5,722 in 2012-13 to 21,267 in 2014-15.
While thousands of people report cases of neglect and verbal, physical and psychological attacks, the single biggest type of abuse reported is financial. These cases involve the theft of money or assets, or elderly people being persuaded to part with money and in some cases their homes.
Reports of financial abuse logged by AEA have rocketed more than tenfold, 

[. . .]

Tactics used by relatives range from simple bullying and coercion to persuading victims to give them Power of Attorney to handle their affairs – and thereby gaining control of their money.
The majority of victims are women over 80. They have often outlived their partners and come from a generation not used to dealing with their own finances, according to the AEA.
The majority of perpetrators are sons and daughters or other relatives. Rising house prices have left some older people asset-rich, acting as a temptation to relatives, campaigners say.

[. . .]

“The real issue at the heart of elder abuse is that it’s families and friends hurting old people, and that’s the intolerable message the Government doesn’t want to deal with.”
The surge in cases where people had suffered financial loss was partly a reflection of an ageing society with a greater number of people who were vulnerable, Mr Fitzgerald said. Another problem was that of grooming, where perpetrators befriend an elderly person before going on to steal from them.
Recent years have seen “a greater tolerance of the abuse of older people before statutory agencies will intervene” due to reduced resources, he said.
“There needs to be a criminal charge of elder abuse. That does not exist at the moment.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/elderly-being-robbed-of-millions-each-year-by-their-own-families-says-new-research-10498387.html

Elderly being robbed of millions each year by their own families, says new research
JONATHAN OWEN
Saturday 12 September 2015

Plunder and Deceit, Mark Levin's New Book

[From article]
Chapter Two, is titled “On The Debt,” and explains to the rising generations how they will be in perpetual servitude to the debt being handed to them by generations that would rather spend and borrow than live within their means. Levin presents this as a moral problem as articulated by Dr. Walter Williams: “We’ve become an immoral people demanding that Congress forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another. Deficits and runaway national debt are merely symptoms of the real problem.” The ruling generation of the political class has, in effect, bribed voters to keep them in power, by mortgaging the future of those who have not yet woken up to what is being done to them by their elders.
[. . .]
Social Security expenditures totaled 0.22 percent of the economy during World War 2, and in 1983 accounted for 24 percent. The second was: “For the first time, people who are retiring today will receive less in benefits than they paid into the system in taxes.” The plunder has already reached such an extent that even those at the top of the food chain are getting a rotten deal.
[. . .]


Mark Levin

“America’s educational productivity has collapsed,” at least as measured by standardized tests, as costs, especially administrative costs, have exploded. The facts and figures he offers on the growth of student debt are astounding, and will eventually cause a crisis that will make the 2008 housing crisis look like a day at the beach.
[. . .]
what poses as environmentalism today is really a “de-growth” movement that will impoverish future generations, diminishing not merely their standard of living, but their opportunities for productive lives. For younger people who have been indoctrinated on the subject in schools for their entire lives, the facts and reasoning here, which owe a well-acknowledged debt to Ayn Rand, could be the most startling of the book.
[. . .]
despotism – a despotism clothed in the garb of compassion. As you would expect from a scholar of his depth and erudition, it is an extremely valuable lesson, especially for a generation trained that the most important thing about the Constitution is that slave holders numbered among its authors.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/07/mark_levins_emplunder_and_deceitem.html

July 29, 2015
Mark Levin's Plunder and Deceit
By Thomas Lifson

Florida Predator Exploited Teenagers Online For Nude Pictures

[From article]
Federal authorities are crediting the bravery of an exploited 14-year-old girl with uncovering a nationwide “sextortion” scheme involving hundreds of underage victims — including four from the Bay State — and are urging anyone else who may have been preyed on to come forward.
“The goal is not to just look at this case, it’s to make parents aware that if it is also happening to somebody else, there might be other predators out there that we need to put in jail,” said Peter F. Kowenhoven, an assistant special agent in charge in the FBI’s Boston office, adding that before Ashley Reynolds’ parents called the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), investigators “didn’t have a case” against the man who terrorized her.
“We weren’t aware that this individual was involved in these sextortions,” Kowenhoven said. “What happened was the parents were able to access her online account ... approached her and said, ‘What is going on here?’ ”
With the help of the NCMEC, Kowenhoven said investigators were able to track the threatening emails Reynolds was receiving to an IP address in Jacksonville, Fla., and ultimately to the home of Lucas M. Chansler, 31.
His massive online “sextortion” scheme entailed relentlessly preying on Reynolds and others for sexually explicit photos by threatening to send nude pictures of them to their family and friends. Chansler has since been sentenced to 105 years in prison.
Now authorities are turning to the public for help identifying his remaining 241 victims.
[. . .]
Anyone with information that may help identify other Chansler victims is encouraged to call the FBI’s Boston Division at 617-742-5533 or send a confidential email to 

fbi.victimassistance (at) ic.fbi.gov
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/07/sextortion_drama_teen_broke_open_nationwide_scheme

‘Sextortion’ drama: Teen broke open nationwide scheme
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
By: Owen Boss
Boston Herald

Massachusetts Attorney General Wants To Stop Online Ads For Prostitution, and Exploitation of Women

The U.S. Court Judge protects advertisements on Backpage due to the law that Congress wrote. Why is that law being enforced according to the way it was written? The Supreme Court of The United States interprets laws, rewrites them, and adds to them as desired by the White House. The previous Attorney General enforced laws selectively and ignored inconvenient laws. Who decides which laws will be strictly enforced, which ones can be changed according to desires, and which laws should be ignored altogether like the immigration laws? Why are low level street dealers being hauled into court every day, provided taxpayer attorneys, translators, and accommodations, while corporations, and wealthy and influential celebrities can avoid accountability? The President regularly shows his disdain for law, for Congress and for the Courts. Why should anyone pay attention to what judges or prosecutors say? 

AG Healey says, "That federal law protects websites when a third party produces the offending content. That law — and other constitutional defenses — have kept Backpage out of trouble.
Healey acknowledged the problem, but said the law is outdated." There are several areas where the law is years behind. Technology is one. How many new devices are being used to abuse, to control, to steal from civilians by criminals, while the law has no knowledge or means to protect them? Even when some legislatures wrote laws protecting citizens, the state provides no training and/or no funding for technology to counter the new devices being used. Only when millions are stolen from banks do spineless politicians notice.   

[From article]
An escort was killed in a Burlington hotel, children have vanished, and yet men seeking prostitutes can still set up a rendezvous with minors with a 
couple of clicks.
It all could have been avoided if Backpage had simply removed its “adults section,” according to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. The site’s sexual advertisements have gone 
unchecked because federal 
law shields Backpage from 
prosecution.
So Healey is attacking in one of the few places Backpage is vulnerable — the court of public opinion.
“Behind every posting on that site is someone’s mother, sister or daughter. So many of them are dealing with serious addiction issues and they’re being kept there by pimps and traffickers,” Healey told me yesterday. “We need to get after the Johns and the pimps, but we also need companies like Backpage to stop being part of the problem.”
Healey is calling on the classified ad site to follow Craigslist and take down its sex trade ads. Her predecessor, Martha Coakley, played a key role in forcing Craigslist’s hand and also took aim at Backpage in 2011.
But unlike Craigslist, Backpage has continued to fight. The site had laws thrown out in Washington state, Tennessee and New Jersey that would have held it criminally liable for its ads. It also recently won a local federal case involving women who said “they were molested and repeatedly raped after being advertised as sexual wares” on Backpage.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Sterns dismissed the case in May, citing the Communications Decency Act, and wrote, “Putting aside the moral judgment that one might pass on Backpage’s business practices, this court has no choice but to adhere to the law that Congress has seen fit to enact.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/07/mcgovern_maura_healey_hopes_to_change_law_that_protects_backpage

McGovern: Maura Healey hopes to change law that protects Backpage site
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
By: Bob McGovern

Boston Herald

Clintons Charge $500,000 For College Event, Diverting Money From Assisting Poor Students

Even if no taxpayer funds were used as claimed, hard to prove in any case, the same money could have funded ten students tuition for a year at $50,000 each. Once again this shows how the Clintons are exploiting their public positions for private gain. 

[From article]

Many people were shocked when they learned last year Hillary Clinton earned nearly $2 million in the span of 18 months giving speeches at colleges nationwide. Turns out there’s plenty more where that came from.
Arizona State University gave $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation for hosting a Clinton Global Initiative University event on the Tempe campus in 2014, The Arizona Republic reports.
Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton all headlined the three-day meeting, which encourages student attendees to pledge themselves to causes such as education, climate change, human rights, poverty, and public health, the initiative’s website states.
[. . .]
ASU spokesman Mark Johnson told The Arizona Republic in an e-mailed statement that the money used to pay for the event did not come from publicly funded coffers, but rather other parts of the university’s budget, such as tuition, private donations and grants.
“[T]he university co-invested in this educational and promotional opportunity, which was co-produced for our students, and for students from around the world. No state funds were used for this purpose,” Johnson stated.
[. . . ]
This year’s Clinton Global Initiative University event was held in March at the University of Miami, where once again Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton headlined the festivities. It was the second time the campus played host to the event. It has yet to be reported what the university paid the foundation.
For the last 14 years that private university was run by Donna Shalala, who served at Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Clinton. Now Shalala is set to become chief executive officer of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the Wall Street Journal reports.

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/22603/

REPORT: PUBLIC UNIVERSITY PAID CLINTON FOUNDATION $500,000 TO HOST EVENT
by JENNIFER KABBANY - FIX EDITOR

MAY 26, 2015

Sex Trafficking Victim Speaks Out About Super Bowl

[From article]
And every year, as if on cue, the city hosting the Super Bowl announces an awareness campaign to combat sex trafficking around what many in the media have referred to as “the biggest weekend for U.S. prostitution.” For example, Scottsdale announced a billboard campaign earlier this month, and the Phoenix police department recently revised its policy concerning prostitution.
[. . .]
I am a victim of the sex-trafficking industry. I was trafficked for more than a decade in Minneapolis, Hawaii and Las Vegas. Based on my experience I can tell you that the Super Bowl is just another weekend for the hundreds of thousands of sex-trafficking victims in the United States.
That’s what it was when I was a sex-trafficked call girl in Las Vegas. The escort agency I worked for expected me to go on as many calls as I could fit in a 12-hour period, from 8 in the evening to 8 the following morning.
I would see between 10-30 different men a night. It didn’t matter how tired I was or how much money I made, I had to be loyal my entire shift for the entire weekend, or face a fine of $1,500. When I finally got home, as soon as I walked in the door, my pimp took 100% of my earnings.
Never mind that the tricks (the men that paid for sex) thought I was enjoying myself. Never mind they thought I was making great money, paying my way through college.
When you live in fear of the next beat-down (I was physically beaten more times than I can count by my pimp and by tricks), this is what you must do to survive. Pretend you are someone else. When I began my time as a prostitute, I chose the name “Fallen” for my fake ID. I was no longer the Annie I knew and recognized; I was “Fallen”—a victim of high-class sex trafficking.
[. . .]
* Sex trafficking is a $32 billion a year industry in the U.S., victimizing between 300,000 and 400,000 American children every year according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
* Globally, the International Labor Organization estimates that there are 4.5 million people trapped in forced exploitation.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/01/30/sex-trafficking-survivor-truth-about-super-bowl-and-sex/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fmost-popular+%28Internal+-+Most+Popular+Content%29

Sex-trafficking survivor: The truth about Super Bowl and sex
By Annie Lobert

Published January 30, 2015

FoxNews.com

Wife Of Deceased Shopping Network Businessman, Sues Investment Counselor For Elder Exploitation

Roy Speer, Founder Home Shopping Network

[From article]
The widow of Roy Speer, who helped start the TV shopping network, claims that Ami Forte and at least one other member of her investment team made 12,000 unauthorized trades and pocketed $40 million in fees during the last five years of Speer’s life — much of that time Speer spent in diapers, bound to a wheelchair, and in a “significant diminished mental capacity,” according to the widow’s lawyers.
The accusations have sent shock waves through Morgan Stanley, which appeared to have taken down Forte’s Morgan Stanley adviser website less than an hour after being contacted by The Post.
[. . .]


Ami Forte, 57, Investment Counselor

But Forte, 57, also had a “a close, intimate relationship” with Speer, and those allegedly unauthorized trades violated Florida’s Elder Exploitation Statute and Florida’s Investor Protection Act, according to a statement from Guy M. Burns, a lawyer for Speer’s widow Lynnda. Business Insider first reported the length of the affair.
[. . .]
Jim Wiggins, a Morgan Stanley spokesman said “We’re saying that that’s a bunch of bulls–t.”

http://nypost.com/2015/05/21/morgan-stanley-adviser-slept-with-client-churned-his-account-widows-lawyers/

‘Morgan Stanley adviser slept with my husband, milked account for fees’
By Kevin Dugan
New York Post
May 21, 2015 | 6:02pm

Clinton Cash, Book Review

[book review]
Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,
by Peter Schweizer
(Harper, 256 pp., $27.99)

George Washington Plunkitt, a late- nineteenth-century New York State legislator, made his extra money in a straightforward way. “I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em,” he said after people criticized him for patronage, corrupt land sales, and other business-as-usual Tammany Hall goings-on. But Plunkitt distinguished between “honest graft” and the regular kind.
[. . .]
Bill and Hillary Clinton are good students of Plunkitt’s first lesson, according to Peter Schweizer’s new bestseller, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. Since Bill left the presidency, the Clintons seen a lot of opportunities—and took ‘em all.
[. . .]
Between 2001 and 2012, Bill made $105.5 million in such speeches.
[. . .]
In 2010, Haiti suffered a catastrophic earthquake. The impoverished nation would require billions in foreign donations to rebuild. Who got himself put in charge of directing those donations? Bill Clinton, as co-chairman of the Interim Haitian Relief Committee. Where would much of the relief money come from? Hillary Clinton, via the U.S. Agency for International Development, a State Department arm. USAID approved cash for a “mobile money initiative” run by Ireland’s Digicel, whose owner, Denis O’Brien, is a key Clinton patron. Bill and Hillary, directly or indirectly, also approved Haiti contracts for companies controlled by Clinton sponsors in housing reconstruction and economic development. The housing contractors performed poorly. Here, too, it’s hard to avoid concluding that the Clintons took money out of the hands of Haitian earthquake survivors. The money again took a circuitous route.
[. . .]
Schweizer’s deliberate writing style strengthens his case. There’s no sex and few women. The author relies almost entirely on public documents, from State Department cables via Wikileaks to global tax records to foreign-language press accounts. When he isn’t sure of something, he says so. This is no breathless, Clinton-hating book dependent on third-hand speculation. Even Schweizer’s subtitle is careful: “foreign governments and businesses helped make Bill and Hillary rich,” he says. They didn’t do it all.
[. . .]
If, to defend Hillary, you must rely on debating whether the secretary of state indeed has control over the State Department, or, alternatively, if you must whine that Republicans behave badly, too, you have a weak case. With months’ worth of warning, the Clintons have not answered the overriding question: Why take this money and create even the appearance of a scandal? Do they need the millions that badly?
Hillary, now a presidential candidate, participated in actions that seem little different from the alleged actions that got both the New York State Senate leader and the New York State Assembly leader indicted this year—essentially, bribery. Outside of New York, the abuses of these state officials won’t matter much. It matters a lot, however, that the Russians control much of our uranium. That foreign dictators and oligarchs now believe that the American government is biddable matters, too.
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/bc0517ng.html

Nicole Gelinas

The Kickback Kids

Peter Schweizer’s new book documents the Clintons’ disturbing financial dealings.

May 17, 2015

Chuck "You" Schumer Exploits Train Deaths For Poltical Purposes

Amtrak Crash in Philadelphia, May 2015

[From article]
On Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, ridiculed a reporter for asking whether the crash in Philadelphia on Tuesday night was caused by a lack of federal funds for Amtrak. The railroad is an easy target for politicians because large swaths of the nation don’t have Amtrak, which is heavily used in the Northeast, Schumer said.
“Speaker Boehner speaks with massive ignorance,” Schumer said as he stood in front of Penn Station, Amtrak’s New York City hub. “Amtrak has been robbing Peter to pay Paul. … They don’t have enough money, plain and simple. Because Congress has cut it.”
[. . .]
“Instead of playing politics in the wake of this tragedy, the senator ought to focus on building a coalition in the Senate to advance the responsible, bipartisan House-passed Amtrak reform bill that paves the way for important upgrades to the Northeast Corridor,” [Boehner] spokesman Kevin Smith said.

http://nypost.com/2015/05/15/schumer-blasts-boehners-ignorance-on-amtrak/

Schumer blasts Boehner for ‘ignorance’ on Amtrak
By Associated Press
New York Post
May 15, 2015 | 6:55pm

You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet!

[From article]
I’m far more hateful than Pamela Geller. In fact, I’d argue there’s no way that she could hate jihad more than I do. I’ve seen jihad up-close, in an Iraqi province where jihadists raped women to shame them into becoming suicide bombers, where they put bombs in little boys’ backpacks then remotely detonated them at family gatherings, where they beheaded innocent civilians while cheering wildly like they were at a soccer match, and where they shot babies in the face to “send a message” to their parents. I’ve seen the despair in the eyes of the innocent victims of jihad, and — believe me — that despair is infinitely greater than the alleged “anguish” caused by a few cartoons.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/418067/im-more-hateful-pamela-geller-david-french

I’m More Hateful Than Pamela Geller
by DAVID FRENCH

May 7, 2015 4:03 PM

Harvard and Tufts Universities Survey Student Sexual Practices For U.S. Department of Education

How long before the therapeutic state feminist bureaucrats at the Department of Education determine what is normal sex, who can do what and how often? If a student violates the national sex code who will punish them? University administrators? Will they be required to wear monitors? Take drugs? Is there no end to the intrusions by government into the lives of Americans, enabled by spineless university administrators, who will do anything to keep the flow of taxpayer funds into college coffers? 

[From article]
this is the first sexual conduct climate survey that Tufts has conducted, and many other universities across the country are conducting similar surveys in light of new suggestions by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
She explained that TASCS was developed by survey experts from the Office of Institutional Research and Evaluation in cooperation with the Sexual Misconduct Prevention Task Force, which was created by University President Anthony Monaco in September 2013. The task force consists of both students and faculty. A 2014 progress report released by the task force recommended the implementation of such a survey as one of many tactics to institutionalize sexual misconduct awareness, education and support.

http://tuftsdaily.com/news/2015/04/21/university-releases-sexual-conduct-survey-student-activists-voice-concerns/

University releases sexual conduct survey, student activists voice concerns
By Sophie Lehrenbaum
April 21, 2015

* * *

[From article]
But the school isn’t trying to understand a problem. It’s trying to cover its behind. These surveys have been recommended by the Office of Civil Rights, and schools can point to them if they are ever investigated by the feds.
The university also seems to be casually adopting the “affirmative consent” doctrine that has become popular on campuses around the country.
[. . .]
This survey is so badly written that one wonders whether its results would even pass muster in the kind of peer-reviewed journals in which Harvard professors regularly publish. But then, the goal here isn’t science. It’s politics.

http://nypost.com/2015/04/20/harvards-wacky-campus-sex-survey/

Harvard’s wacky campus-sex survey
By Naomi Schaefer Riley
New York Post
April 20, 2015 | 7:55pm

* * *

[From article]
The survey, which is a Harvard-specific version of an Association of American Universities poll being conducted at 28 schools, was released through individualized links to students at Harvard on April 12 from research company Westat, which is administering the survey. It will be open until May 3.
[. . .]
Leah Rosovsky ’78, University vice president for strategy and programs, said each of Harvard’s schools is using specific ways to promote the survey, such as posters or messages from deans or House masters. She said she hopes student organizations will encourage their members to participate in the survey.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/4/22/sexual-conduct-survey-update/

More Than One-Third of Students Respond to Sexual Conduct Climate Survey
By MARIEL A. KLEIN and THEODORE R. DELWICHE
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
April 21, 2015

Harvard University Honors Black Nobel Laureate, Who Freely Expresses Her Hatred of Whites. Can It Be Racism?

Here's another false premise, more false facts, more propaganda believed by many including this celebrated black poetess honored by Harvard University. How many innocent white people will be killed by this celebrity encouraging murders of white people? Harvard University shows it has no shame exploiting racial animosity and encouraging violence and murder.  See how far this formerly great university has fallen. Founded as a training school for ministers, it now produces politicians who work to destroy the American political system and encourages its destruction.

[From article]
“This is the conversation. I want to see a cop shoot a white unarmed teenager in the back,” Morrison said. “And I want to see a white man convicted for raping a black woman. Then when you ask me, ‘Is it over?’, I will say yes.”

http://dailycaller.com/2015/04/20/toni-morrison-i-want-to-see-a-cop-shoot-a-white-unarmed-teenager/

Toni Morrison: ‘I Want To See A Cop Shoot A White Unarmed Teenager’
10:36 PM 04/20/2015
CHUCK ROSS

* **

[From article]
A winner of a Nobel Prize for Literature, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Morrison is one of the most decorated living authors. She is the author of more than ten novels, including Beloved, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 and the 1987 National American Book Award.
It will not be Morrison’s first appearance at Harvard. The octogenarian writer has given multiple previous talks on campus spanning a wide range of topics from advice on writing to good and evil in literature. Notably, Morrison delivered the Massey Lectures in 1992 which gave rise, in part, to her book of literary criticism, “Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination.”

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/4/21/toni-morrison-norton-lectures/

Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison To Deliver Six Campus Lectures
By C. RAMSEY FAHS, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
April 21, 2015

* * *

[From article]
Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison says she wants to see an officer shoot an unarmed white teenager in the back before agreeing that the “conversation about race” is over, but she almost certainly already has received her wish.

An analysis released last week shows that more white people died at the hands of law enforcement than those of any other race in the last two years, even as the Justice Department, social-justice groups and media coverage focus on black victims of police force.
[. . .]
Meanwhile, the deaths of whites at the hands of law enforcement typically receive less attention, even when the case is shrouded in controversy. For example, Gilbert Collar, an 18-year-old white student at the University of South Alabama, was shot and killed while naked, unarmed and under the influence of drugs by a black police officer.

[. . .]
As researchers are quick to point out, FBI data on police shootings by race is notoriously incomplete, which may explain why Peter Moskos, assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, decided to use figures from the website Killed by Based on that data, Mr. Moskos reported that roughly 49 percent of those killed by officers from May 2013 to April 2015 were white, while 30 percent were black. He also found that 19 percent were Hispanic and 2 percent were Asian and other races.
[. . .]
The fact-checking website PolitiFact concluded in August 2014 that police kill more whites than blacks after the claim was made by conservative commentator Michael Medved. PolitiFact cited data from the Centers for Disease Control on fatal injuries by “legal intervention” from 1999 to 2011.
“Over the span of more than a decade, 2,151 whites died by being shot by police compared to 1,130 blacks. In that respect, Medved is correct,” said PolitiFact.
But PolitiFact gave his assertion a “half true” rating because whites make up 63 percent of the population, while blacks make up just 12 percent.
“Yes, more whites than blacks die as a result of an encounter with police, but whites also represent a much bigger chunk of the total population,” PolitiFact said in its Aug. 21 post.
But PolitiFact did not take into account the percentage of those by race involved in violent crime or shootings of police, as Mr. Moskos did.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/21/police-kill-more-whites-than-blacks-but-minority-d/

Police kill more whites than blacks, but minority deaths generate more outrage
Analysis contradicts widespread views about racial targets
By Valerie Richardson
The Washington Times
Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Shocking The Senses, Massachusetts Attorney General Targets Wrongdoers in Massachusetts

[From article]

The MassHealth patients were charged fees as high as $325 for an initial visit, and $150 to $200 for subsequent visits, Healey’s office said, even though they should not have been charged anything. Pro­viders are required by law to only accept payments from MassHealth for services to the plan’s members, according to Healey’s office.
The cash-paying patients also were allowed to skip addiction therapy sessions, and only meet with a doctor once per month, as opposed to MassHealth patients who were required to attend weekly therapy sessions and meet twice a month with a doctor, according to the lawsuit.
“We allege this treatment center knowingly took advantage of patients by forcing­ them to pay exorbitant and unnecessary fees for opiate addiction ser­vices,” Healey said in a statement. “Comprehensive and affordable treatment is critical for those struggling with addiction.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/business/healthcare/2015/04/ag_sues_drug_treatment_center_for_charging_cash_for_services_covered_by

AG sues drug treatment center for charging­ cash for services covered by insurance
Insured patients charged cash for services
Thursday, April 23, 2015
By: O’Ryan Johnson

Boston Herald

Illinois Workers Challenge Unions on Mandatory Dues

[From article]

The future of public and private unions in two big labor-friendly states may be at stake as foes mount aggressive legal challenges over the long-controversial practice of mandatory dues.
The court cases in Illinois and California revolve around so-called "fair share" payments, or the dues unions extract from workers whose jobs stand to benefit from collective bargaining -- whether or not the workers are technically union members. Unions argue workers should have to pay their "fair share" of the costs of negotiating and administering a union contract, so they’re not getting a free ride from the union’s efforts.
But workers are often surprised to see money taken from their paychecks, without their consent. 

[. . .]

“I don't feel that the union represents me 100 percent in what I believe and what I like to do,” Janus explained. “And nobody asked me if I wanted to join the union, they just said 'here's a job, you're in the union.'"
The intention of the lawsuit is to get a federal judge in Chicago, and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court, to declare the fee for non-member dues unconstitutional.
In addition, [Republican Illinois Gov. Bruce] Rauner issued an executive order with the same purpose.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04/06/union-stronghold-forced-dues/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fmost-popular+%28Internal+-+Most+Popular+Content%29

Unions battle for survival in key strongholds as court cases challenge forced dues
By Ruth Ravve

Published April 06, 2015

FoxNews.com

Fat Cat Union Boss Paid $500,000 for Ten Months Work

[From article]
Former United Food and Commercial Workers executive vice president Bill McDonough was paid $544,137 last year despite leaving the union in October.
Working as the collective bargaining director at UFCW headquarters in Washington, D.C., McDonough received a gross salary of $378,606 plus $3,000 in “allowances,” $88,851 for official business and $73,680 in other disbursements, based on the union’s 2014 report to the U.S. Department of Labor.
UFCW classified 80 percent of McDonough’s time as representational activity, which means his pay came both from member dues and mandatory “agency fees” UFCW takes from nonmembers in states without right-to-work laws.
[. . .]
Mandatory union fees taken from nonmembers cannot legally be spent on political activity, but UFCW agency fee payers were forced to subsidize activist groups the union paid for “representational” activities.
[. . .]
Meanwhile, Catalist — a data consulting firm accused of illegal campaign coordination with hundreds of Democratic campaigns — received $706,600 in UFCW political expenditures.
According to The Center for Responsive Politics, UFCW spent over $10 million on political campaign contributions and independent campaign expenditures during the 2014 election cycle.
“We have long known that Big Labor is one of the largest political actors out there, so there is no real surprise in seeing where the money goes or how much is in the system,” Greg Lawson, a policy analyst for Ohio’s free-market Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, told Watchdog via email.
“It is unfortunate that all too much political rhetoric seems to point the finger only at ‘Big Business’ while ignoring Big Labor,” Lawson added.
[. . .]
The union demands government create “economic justice” by forcing wealthy corporate executives to pay low-skill workers a $15 minimum wage — but UFCW bosses’ salaries come directly from workers’ paychecks.
To the extent UFCW has increased pay and benefits for workers at grocery stores and retailers nationwide, higher costs are often passed on to wealthy and low-income customers alike.

http://watchdog.org/209173/retail-labor-union-boss/

Former retail labor union boss gets $544,000 for 10 months of work
By Jason Hart

March 31, 2015 /